Last Vamp Standing (22 page)

“This one’s for you to finish later.” Pike took it from Dante’s shaking hand and slipped it into his pocket. “We’ve got hundreds of bottles of Nightshade in different varieties. The Watchers in our compound must refuse to feed by any other means in order to be granted access. We’ve found it beneficial in satiating our hunger, thus making the voices manageable, driving the Jinn away.”

“Sounds peachy.” Dante cleared his throat, coughing up some of the Nightshit.

“Just remember there’s one pretty major side effect to drinking the stuff.”

“You’re going to spring the side effect on me now, after I’ve already downed half the bottle?” Dante gripped Pike by his starched-straight collar. He clenched tight, cutting off Pike’s circulation.

“It’ll satiate your hunger and make the voices dim, but it’ll weaken you,” Pike said. “You’ll be no stronger, no faster than an average mundane. Your teleporting may or may not work properly, your nails may not elongate as quickly as they should or not at all, and the rest of your abilities should be equally drained.”

“Great, so I’ll be pretty much useless.”

“Not useless . . .” Pike removed Dante’s hands from his throat. “As long as Nightshade is in your system, you won’t harm Ariana. You won’t feed from her or pull the good from her soul. That is what you were worried about, is it not?”

Dante nodded, feeling the Nightshade working fast. Within a few seconds, his throat warmed and his muscles relaxed, loosening up. And although his voices were still there, barking in the back of his mind, they were tucked safely away.

But there was one problem. One thorn in Dante’s side.

“How long will I be affected? How long until my strength comes back?”

“One bottle saps about a day’s worth of strength. You drank half, should put you out the rest of today for sure.”

“Shit.” Dante stood, shaking out the jelly in his legs. “Savage and his death shades are coming back, and Ariana needs—Black Moon needs . . . damn it, I can’t drink this. I can’t win.”

“You can,” Pike yelled as Dante sprinted away. “You can . . . and you will.”

As Dante charged out of the mud pit onto the path that was overgrown with shrubs, he thought about Ariana. The kissable pout of her lips. The soft curve of her cheeks and the petite line of her chin. He thought of her desire and how she’d bloomed for him, wanting him to take more. Oh, how he’d wanted to feel the hard pounding of her heart as she rested over the top of him.

How was he going to get out of the mess he’d shoved himself into? If he finished off the bottle and made love to Ariana the way his body yearned to, he’d be useless when Savage attacked.

Never had he been more torn.

He could be with Ariana the way they both wanted. Or he could protect her the way she needed.

Not both.

Not. Both
.

Considering the Nightshade was already spreading through his system, Dante had half a day to kill before his strength—and the voices—returned. And he knew exactly how he was going to spend it.

Chapter Twenty-One

“Watcher Intel suggests Savage will make his attack on Black Moon tonight. Mandatory curfew is in place. Hold strong and deny your urges.”

W
ATCHER
A
RCHIVE, UPDATE

“I
REALLY DON’T
have time right now, Echo, make it fast.” Ariana brushed past him, making a beeline across the grass. She had to get to the library and look up the cemetery records. Dig up as much information about Andre Cornelison as possible.

“I had to come back to warn you ’bout your friend.”

“You think I’m worried about Dante when you’re standing at my side? You shouldn’t even be here. How’d you convince the Primus to grant you entrance back into Black Moon?”

Echo exhaled so heavily, his breath felt like a monsoon blowing against Ariana’s neck. “I gave him the information he need, that all, but there’s more to it than that.”

As they reached the corner of the library, Ariana spun around. She wasn’t about to let him follow her all the way inside.

“Whatever information you gave to the Primus, you can now relay to me,” she said, staring into the shallow depths of his eyes.

He scanned the grass around them as if he was nervous about other elders picking up on what he was about to say.

Ariana followed his line of sight. They were far from alone, though in this place that was par for the course.

Slade stood near the bluff, his back to the sea, facing a long lineup of elders. Tables had been arranged in front of them with guns lying on their metal bellies in the center. Slade slid a gun off the nearest table and dropped the hammer. Then he dug a black rock out of the earth and chucked it into the sea. Taking aim, Slade let the rock fly, arch, and fall before firing a round that shattered it to dust. The elders nodded, listening to his expert instruction, then followed suit with their own rocks, their own guns.

Between Ruan’s eagerness to discover his maware, fleshing it out and strengthening Black Moon’s barrier, Dylan’s assistance with blood distribution, and Slade’s dedication to his . . .
craft
of warfare, Ariana’s spirit swelled with hope. Maybe they’d be ready for Savage after all. They might actually come out of this.

Echo must’ve been thinking the same thing. “Wish I could get the Watchers to help you too, Ari.”

“Is that what you promised the Primus?” She doubted it.

“No. They want no part of no fight, Savage or not.”

“Why is that?” she probed, wanting him to validate what she’d discovered in the books earlier. Hearing the words might make it easier to grasp. “If we’ve lived in peace and allowed you to live right outside our haven for so many years, why won’t you help us when we need it most?”

“Watchers fight, can’t go to the Ever After. Watchers love with their bodies, can’t go either. Have to be pure to go, and those things lead to evil you can’t imagine till you see.”

“So you can’t fight because you think you can’t pass to the Ever After if you’re a sinner? We’re all sinners, Echo.”

“There’s more to it than that. I’m talking ’bout screwin’ around, Ari. About what happens when we give our bodies, you get me?” He shook his head. “We can’t go to Ever After. We spend our days and nights in the Nether Realm instead, fighting for rest of our eternal lives.”

Was that the war raging in Dante’s head? If he thought he was a Watcher, did he think making love to her would forbid him from entering the Ever After? What did that make her, that she urged him on? A selfish strumpet, that’s what.

Her stomach wrenched at the possibility that every desire blooming in her body, every desire that had bloomed for him, had been damning him.

“Echo, you make love to those wood nymphs all the time. I caught you lifting one’s skirt the other night by the back gate.” As memories of that night flooded in, the truthfulness of his words bobbed buoyantly. “Don’t you care about going to the Ever After?”

“Course I do, but even I fall off the wagon time and again.” He lowered his gaze and skidded his heels in the mud. Floppy red dreadlocks smacked him in the face. “You gotta know, Watchers don’t drink blood or eat like mundanes. What we do is much worse. Nymphs drink the nectar off the plants, I get what I need from them and that fills me up just the same. Vamps feed from bottles, but it’s not same as mouth to vein, you get me? Sometimes I like to pull the real thing from the real thing.”

Squinting, Ariana tried to grasp his words as the elders on the bluff fired their guns in scattered succession.

“So you feed from plants? And off the blood of women who feed from those . . .
plants
?” Just when Ariana thought she’d never laugh with Echo again, she proved herself wrong. She might’ve been laughing at him rather than with him, but she was laughing all the same. “That’s some garden you Watchers have got growing, Echo.”

He didn’t share her amusement. “We don’t drink blood, Ari, it’s worse than that.” He stared through her, pinning her in place. “ ’Them plants only keep our hunger back, keep us thinkin’ and movin’ without starvin’. Some of us want to feed, some of us
need
to feed from somethin’ different . . . somethin’ darker.” He nodded to Dante, who pushed through the haven doors. “Ask him.”

The sight of Dante evaporated the air in Ariana’s lungs. He was strong, with hard ridges of muscles stretching over his shoulders and down his chest. His hair was flattened forward, his five o’clock shadow darkening the breadth of his square jaw. Her body shivered as his stare drank her in from her boots to her corset, to the length of ponytail draping over her shoulder.

Her gaze swept back to Echo. “If you don’t feed off blood, then what—”

“Ask your boy about the kind of energy we crave,” Echo whispered. “He’s one of us. The one you’ve got to be careful for most, ’cause you already let him too close. Ask him how he feeds before you go anywhere with him alone.”

“I don’t want to ask him. I’m asking you.”

Dante closed in, his hands clenching to fists. If Ariana feared for Echo’s safety, she would’ve told him to scat, leave before Dante reached striking distance, but . . . she really didn’t. She really didn’t know whether she could trust a word that came from his wide, goofy mouth either.

“I gotta run,” Echo said, backing away. “But I couldn’t go before I make sure your eyes open. You smart, Ari, you ask questions. This time, with him, ask with your head instead of your heart.”

“You still didn’t tell me what you told the Primus to get you in here,” she fired as he turned toward the cemetery, back the way they came.

“I said you were in danger from more than Savage, and I told him from who. Ask him, Ari. Ask how your boy feeds and you’ll see. You should stay far away. Be kept under lock and key. I told your Primus that, too.”

Fan-flippin’-tastic.
If Ariana wasn’t already a prisoner to Black Moon, the Primus would see that she was now.

D
ANTE WOULD NEVER
get over the sight of Ariana from afar, the way her hair reflected hints of auburn, the way her lips pursed when she talked to others, but he knew, from the second he pushed out the haven doors, that he’d never forget the sight of her standing in the morning sun.

The sunlight loved her, highlighting the soft curve of her cheekbones, twinkling the spark in her eyes. With each step that closed the distance between them, Ariana became more beautiful, more angelic, and seemed to steal the sun’s rays from everyone around her.

When she set her sights upon him, Dante’s chest seized, yet the muscles in the rest of his body felt relaxed and limber. He felt calm . . . satiated. As if he’d had a back-alley beating that had released hard bursts of adrenaline.

The sensation of being filled up was foreign, tingling nerves through his gut.

“There you are,” Ariana said as he approached. “We need to talk.”

He stood before her, taking in her beauty and the subtleness of her strength; it was like the wind. Always there—a gentle caress that warmed his insides—and capable of gusting into something formidable at a moment’s notice. She was a goddess. Regal and powerful. A queen standing in front of her castle.

“Well, here’s the thing,” he said, leaning in to whisper. “There’s time to talk and time to act. And today I’m not in the talking mood.”

If Dante only had half the day to spend in bed with Ariana before the Nightshade wore off, he wasn’t going to spend it talking.

But before he went and did something insanely stupid, he had to know for certain . . . had to make sure the half-bottle dose did the job.

She seemed to shiver from his words, quaking before him like a leaf on a limb. Heat radiated the space between them, evaporating all the breathable air. She inhaled a jagged breath. “There are things we have to—”

“Touch me.” The words jumped out, sounding harsher than he’d meant them.

“What?” She blanched, shaking her head. “I really don’t have time for this. I’m headed to the library. I’d invite you to come with me, but since you’re still not up for talking about what is going on with you, I’d rather spend the day with a steaming cup of Ospresso and a stack of books.”

“Just touch my hand.” Holding his breath, he held it out. “Take it.”

She jerked back. “No.”

“Come on.” Would the voices go away completely? Would they disappear until he could hear nothing but the buzz of his own thoughts? “It’s not like I’m asking you to stroke me off or something, I just want to see if . . .”

“If what?”

The anticipation of her touch was driving him mad. His heart was beating too fast, pounding out of his chest. His lungs were tight and constricted, oddly panicked. But the voices were quiet, humming in the back of his mind.

“Tell me what you were going to say and I’ll do what you ask.” She dangled her hand over his, taunting him.

God, what he wouldn’t give to tell Ariana everything. To tell her about his hunger, the nights spent alone out of fear he’d hurt someone who didn’t deserve it, the way she made him feel like there was hope for his future, even if he didn’t know what it was yet.

“Why do you want me to touch you so badly?” she asked.

He swallowed gravel. “Isn’t it obvious?”

As the air around them stilled, sucking up his words, Ariana’s eyes inflamed. Slowly, torturing his nerves each passing second, she dropped her hand into his.

Sparks burst from his palm, up his arms and through his chest, setting off fireworks in his middle. His mouth dried, and his stomach rolled. And when her fingers curled in his, Dante could’ve sworn the sun exploded, shattering into starbursts of red and orange that cascaded around them.

Losing all sense of place and time, Dante spun Ariana around and pressed her back against the library building. As his knee found its way between her legs and his hand behind her back, her breath hitched.

“What are you doing?” She was out of breath, the pulse on her neck working double time. And her cheeks! They flushed the softest shade of pink. “You can’t. We can’t.”

Closing his eyes, Dante leaned down into Ariana’s neck and inhaled a deep breath of her hair. “We can.”

Fine strands of her hair that had come loose from her ponytail tickled his nose. They smelled of lavender and something a bit sweeter.

Her body melted against his as her gaze darted to the elders near the bluff. “Let’s go somewhere we can talk. Not here. Elders are watching.”

“Let them watch.”

Not a single hunger pain struck his middle. And although the voices were there, vibrating in the back of his mind, he easily tuned them out. Pretended they were cars on the city street outside his apartment window in the city or pissed-off seagulls squawking as they dive bombed him on the beach.

He inhaled another deep breath, relishing the amount of control in his body. Since he met Ariana, he’d either been due for a drink, on the verge of blackout, or already there. He’d never felt her this way or had the ability to absorb so much pleasure from the silkiness of her skin and the sweet fragrance of her hair.

Maybe Nightshade wasn’t Nightshit after all. If it could dish this kind of effect, he wanted second helpings.

“Let’s go upstairs,” she whispered into his ear.

Waves of chills rolled over the back of his neck and down his body, seizing his balls, curling his toes. He planted his hands on either side of the wall, pinning her in place. Her eyes widened in fiery approval.

“Touch me again,” he said, barely breathing.

When her hands skated to the ridges on either side of his stomach, Dante’s mind wiped clean. He slung her around his side, right onto his back. Squealing, she looped her arms around his neck.

“Hold on,” he barked, shooting her a warning glare. “The ride might get a little bumpy.”

Dante hoped he still had enough strength to do this.

“What ride?” she asked, then gasped as Dante clawed up the face of the building.

He scaled the wall slowly, gauging his strength. He slipped at first, sliding down the few feet he’d gained. But as his muscles fired, propelling him forward, he moved faster. Faster still. Although the climb was harder than he would’ve expected, burning his muscles with each leap, nothing was going to stop him from reaching Ariana’s room.

Ariana screamed for the world to hear and buried her face into his neck. She held tight. Squeezed her thighs around his middle. Dante couldn’t wait to have her thighs squeezing around him when he was turned around facing her, hip to hip. Chest to chest.

Desperate to reach the ledge, he quickened his pace, leaping and digging in, then doing it again until he reached the balcony a few heart-stopping seconds later. With a final leap, he catapulted over the side and landed on the ground, crouched near the closed accordion wall of her suite.

“When I said let’s go upstairs,” Ariana said, sliding off his side, “I meant for us to take the elevator.”

She pressed a code into a small metal box on the far side of the balcony.

“I’ve never been one for convention.” Dante paced near the railing, his heart thumping slow and hard in his ears. The gurgling tide of voices receded until he could barely make them out at all.